Gamechangers at the EPIC Communications Directors Forum

June 13, 2017 at Hotel du Vin, Henley on Thames

How the world’s most disruptive innovators are reshaping their and your world …

A new generation of businesses are shaking up every market, harness the potential of new markets, and the power of new technologies, to redefine the way we work, compete and win.

From Airbnb to Alibaba, Baidu to Babylon to Brewdog, Casper to Corning, Dalian Wanda to Deliveroo, Epocrates to Ethereum … and many more … these companies are “ideas and networks” companies ,built around audacious ideas which resonate with their new audiences, and then spread fast and exponentially through social and physical networks.

What can we learn from them? About how they win, but also about how we can take their best ideas and apply them to our own businesses? What does it take to think and act like these disruptors, to drive new types of innovation and growth? How can the new strategic and engagements models working with customers, be applied to employees? What will you do?

Markets are volatile and uncertain, winners rise and loser fall, competition intensifies and customer have a relentless desire for better. Of course biggest is not always best. Market share is rarely a measure of success today. Growth is typically found in profitable niches, where you can grow further, focused and faster.

The best organisations are exponential – they harness technology, but also new business and market models – physical and digital – to accelerate value creation. Think about how WhatsApp created $19bn value in just three years, Uber $60bn in 4 years, Xiaomi $70bn in 5 years. At the same time, its about ensuring that revenues and profitability follow the valuations.

Finding fast growth means opening your eyes to new opportunities – to the fast growth markets of Asia, Africa and South America, or to the new consumers, such as women, millennials and boomers. It means redefining purpose in a way that is relevant, refocusing strategy on markets, and particular the new profit pools, and innovating business models and customer experiences for growth. It also means ensuring that growth is profitable – it is easy to be big, but to create profits, and sustained value, is much harder.

What are the growth engines of business today?

Markets– finding the best spaces for growth in existing and new markets, for example in new geographies, in niche segments, in adjacent markets, or elsewhere – in the past we assuming that we continue to focus on the same domains, today growth starts with choice of markets.

Customers – redefining your business around what customers seek to achieve, rather than what you do, gives you huge space to meet their needs better through more joined-up and relevant solutions – enabling them to achieve more, and you to create and capture more value.

Brands – using your most powerful assets to do more, extending into new markets and categories, through the lens of brands, extensions and innovation. This requires a brand that is about a bigger idea rather than limit to one product and activity.

Networks – forget the old thinking about core capabilities where you had to produce and distribution everything, find the best opportunities and ideas, then bring together the right partners to exploit it. Networks have an exponential effect, on supply and demand.

Business models– rethinking the way your business works, in particular the different revenues and cost streams. Consider alternative business models, such as freemium, subscription or time-based – both to generate income, but also to engage customers in more distinctive ways.

So what does this mean for what and how we communicate, internally and externally?

And how we build corporate reputation, in a way that drives long-term growth?